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Rep. John Conyers floor statement voicing his concerns about potential unintended and negative consequences, of a mandatory NIH Public Access policy
July 18, 2007

Rep. Steve Israel floor statement voicing his concerns about potential unintended and negative consequences, of a mandatory NIH Public Access policy
July 18, 2007

Microsoft accelerates free access to journals
Ochieng' Ogodo
SciDev.net
16 July 2007



Copyright Comstock

Wiring Research to Developing Countries
Josh Fischman
The Chronicle of Higher Education
July 11, 2007

Bridging the Digital Divide: Publishers Commit to Bring Free Access to Critical Research to Developing World
Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture Association in Kenya
July 10, 2007

Kenya: At Last, Kenyans Have Chance to Access Latest Research Findings

Peter Mwaura
The Nation (Nairobi)
9 June 2007

Open Access - Clear benefits, Hidden Costs

Rick Anderson
Learned Publishing, Volume20, #2,
April 2007
"...to know whether and to what degree any particular OA solution is really a good thing requires a calculation not simply of its benefits, but of its net benefits once costs are taken into consideration."

Reproducible Research: Moving toward Research the Public Can Really Trust

Christine Lane, MD, MPH, Senior Deputy Editor; Steven N. Goodman, MD, PhD, MHS,
Associate Editor; Michael E. Griswald, PhD, Associate Editor; Harold C. Sox, MD,
Editor
Annals of Internal Medicine
March 2007
"A community of scientists arrives at the truth by independently verifying new observations."

Mandated Research Database Would Impair Copyrights and Health

Richard L. Frank and Kenneth D. Ackerman
Washington Legal Foundation, Legal Backgrounder
January 12, 2007 "...medical science has flourished best when allowed to operate in a free, open marketplace of ideas, and has stagnated only when governments...have tried to shackle it with ideology or bureaucracy."

When Should Information Not Be Free?

Dan Gainor
Business & Media Institute
December 15, 2006
"'Open Access' plan in Congress would create another governmental boondoggle."

Will public access initiatives kill societies’ journals?

Mark Sobel
American Society of Investigative Pathology, ASPI Pathways, Vol 1, No 1
November 2006
Editorial on proposed Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006

Take a Stand

Rudy Baum
American Chemical Society, Chemical and Engineering News Vol 84, No 23
June 5, 2006
Argues against "...misguided efforts by the federal government to take control of STM publishing..." through the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006.

Access to the Scientific Literature - A Difficult Balance

Martin Frank
New England Journal of Medicine
April 13, 2006
Discusses the tenets of John Willinsky's The Access Principle

Free Article for Sale: $11,000 - What is Free Public Access Worth?

Neil Blair Christensen
Nature Publishing Group
Kidney International 2006
Editorial. "Revolutions that make things free are short lived if few benefit from what is made free and if few have the money to pay for it."

Academic Authors Favour Peer Review Over Open Access

Ken Thomas
Information World Review
December 9, 2005
...92% of academics support the system of peer review for publication of scholarly articles, according to a survey by CIBER.

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Correspondence

Letter to the Editor of the Los Angeles Times from Dr. Brian Crawford, Executive Council Chair, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers, in response to its editorial on access to NIH research.
August 6, 2007

Letter from Reps. John Conyers and Lamar Smith to Reps. David Obey and James Walsh on the "significant implications for intellectual property," posed by proposed changes to the NIH Access Policy and plans by the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property to conduct a hearing to properly study the issue.
July 10, 2007

Letter to Rep. John Conyers urging the House Judiciary Committee to study the copyright implications of a proposal to change the NIH Access Program from voluntary to mandatory.
July 5, 2007

Letter to the Editor of Library Journal from AAP Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division Executive Council member Lynne C. Rienner
June 15, 2007
Dispels false accusations against AAP regarding the Federal Research Public Access Act.

Letter to Reps. David Obey and James Walsh from Reps. Howard Berman and Howard Coble
June 13, 2007
Advises on the need for Judiciary Committee to examine the implications for copyright protections of peer reviewed journal articles before altering the voluntary NIH access policy and expresses support for efforts encouraging NIH and other groups to work with publishers to raise awareness and participation in the voluntary manuscript deposit program.

National Consumers League (NCL) Letter to Senators Lieberman, Cornyn, and Sessions Regarding Concerns with the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (S2695)
Linda F. Golodner, President, NCL
December 1, 2006

Letter to Senators Arlen Specter and Tom Harkin
November 3, 2006
Co-signed by 47 publishers, letter urges chairman and ranking member of Senate Labor, HHS Subcommittee on Appropriations to reconsider House language in funding bill for NIH public access policy

Letter to Representatives Ralph Regula and David Obey
November 3, 2006
Co-signed by 47 publishers, letter urges chairman and ranking member of House Labor, HHS Subcommittee on Appropriations to remove language in funding bill for NIH public access policy.

Letter from Publishers of AAP's Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division to National Institutes of Health Director Elias Zerhouni with Publisher Principles
July 31, 2006
Document conveys publishers' proposal for facilitating implementation of the NIH Public Access Policy and requests a meeting with Elias Zerhouni, MD, Director, NIH

Letter to Kathleen Larmett, Executive Director, National Council of University Research Administrators.
June 29, 2006
Contains summary of hazards to the integrity of scientific research publishing that university press directors believe will result from the NIH Public Access Policy. Asks Larmett to forward to members of the NCURA.

Letter to Senator Susan Collins, Chair, Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs
May 23, 2006
Signed by 71 commercial, non-profit, society, university press publishers and publishing associations worldwide, letter calls the proposed FRPAA legislation "unnecessary" and cautions that it "would adversely impact the existing peer review system that ensures the high quality of scientific research in the United States" and "would impose costly new mandates on federal agencies."

Letter from AAP President & CEO Pat Schroeder to Sen. Tom Harkin
March 26, 2007
Makes the case for the Professional/Scholarly Publishers (PSP) of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) that the Labor, Health & Human Services, Education Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriations not include language in the National Institutes of Health funding bill directing NIH to change its Public Access Policy.

Letter from PSP Division of AAP and members of the DC Principles Coalition to Senator Arlen Specter
March 13, 2006
Calls on Congress to oppose mandated, expanded NIH Public Access Policy.

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Position Papers

Brussels Declaration on STM Publishing
March 5, 2007
From the International Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) publishing community as represented by over 50 individual publishing houses and publishing trade associations worldwide. This is the publishers' response to the European Commission's Communication on Scientific Information and its Conference on Scientific Publishing in the European Research Area in Brussels on February 15-16, 2007.

Publisher Principles to Facilitate Implementation of the NIH Public Access Policy
July 31, 2006
Principles sent with publishers' proposal for facilitating implementation of the NIH Public Access Policy to Elias Zerhouni, MD, Director, NIH.

PSP Urges Congress to Oppose Mandated, Expanded NIH Public Access Policy
March 13, 2006
Press statement refers to 3/13/06 letter to Sen. Arlen Specter from AAP's professional/scholarly publishers and members of DC Principles Coalition

Royal Society Position Statement on 'Open Access'
Royal Society of the UK
November 24, 2005
Founding purpose of this society is to promote exchange of knowledge between scholars and the practice of peer review. This statement is the society's response to the Research Councils UK's consultation on access to research outputs.

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Forums

Is OA (Gold) Really a Desirable Goal for Scientific Publishing?
American Scientist Open Access Forum
January 8, 2007
Exchange between John Harnad, mathematical physicist, and Stevan Harnad, 'archivangelist.'

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Press Releases

New Initiative Preserving Research Integrity to Unite Scholars, Publishers - PRISM Coalition to Inform Public on Risks Government Interference Poses to Science and Medicine
August 23, 2007

HINARI Program Hits Major Access Milestone - 2,500th Member Joins Developing Country Institutes with Low-Cost Access to World's Medical Literature
May 18, 2007

U.S. Professional & Scholarly Publishers Endorse International Declaration on Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishing
March 7, 2007


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